Southern Living - in Cochabamba, Bolivia

Monday, June 7, 2010

Triplet Portraits

Last week, we were so happy to have Melissa Dickey, who runs Captured Whispers Photography, visit Bolivia to take snapshots of our children. So thankful for her donation of her time and talents.

Here are a few favorites from the triplets' shoot! (Will put up other shots of House 1 and House 2 soon!)

Sleeping ballerinas

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Happy Mother´s Day!

Last week was Mother´s Day in Bolivia, and it´s a pretty big deal. We had many-a-celebration here in Cochabamba!

Kindergarten program

Out to lunch after watching her dances at school

We also celebrated the staff - the tias who work at Casa de Amor are absolutely amazing people- I will never be able to put into words how thankful I am for them! All of our Baby Home tias are moms with families outside of work but additionally truly are the moms for our 25 or so babies here. And they love these kids just like their own.

Finally, Mateo and I celebrated Mother´s Day with our adopted Bolivian mamitas! (Shoutout to Crea Sielbeck, who I will be seeing 2 weeks from today!)

We are incredibly blessed by both Angelica & Mauge who have adopted us since we arrived in Bolivia. Teachers, nurses, pranksters, friends...they take such good care of us. It is almost impossible to imagine being here without them - I love them so much!

The view from our lunch spot...Taquina!

Mateo & Mama Mauge

Angelicaaaaaaaaa!

Haaaaaaa - Not sure how I got stuck with the crazy mom - we´re actually not in Japan here.

...although I guess nobody here wins a prize for acting normal.

Love them.

Sundays at church - it takes a village, for sure.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Haircuts

It was high time a few of our little ladies got their hair trimmed up! One of our neighbors is really good with our kids and is always happy when we visit for haircuts. On Saturday we had a little girls' day out for haircuts and lunch.

Tadaaaaa! (This girl has more hair than any child I've ever seen!)

All done! Ready to go out!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

A few last Sunday shots

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Crib Time

Naptime here in the Baby Home can be pretty hit-or-miss...there are days when we don't hear a sound until it's time to wake everybody up, and then there are days when the kids just have too much to chatter about (or too many toys to throw at each other) to even close their eyes! As you can imagine, with 25 or so babies, it's not the easiest to get everybody quiet EVER, but even when they're not snoozing on schedule, we've still got some pretty happy kiddos:

And sometimes, they do fall asleep! :)

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Coming and Going...

On Wednesday we said goodbyes to one little girl, and this morning in came another! (With almost exactly the same name, ha!)

This little girl isn´t exactly brand new to us, though. In fact, she´s lived with Casa de Amor since she was a baby. However, since she was about a year old she has lived in House 3, which is a home to children with special needs. This little girl has been diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and also is hearing impaired. She also loves climbing on things and giving hugs! She has lived with the Alseth family for most of her life. You can read about her rough start here on our director´s blog -

http://hogardeamor.blogspot.com/2009/04/child-history-30.html

Until very recently, House 3 has been run by a missionary family by the US - home to 8 Bolivian children as well as their 4 and run in a family setting. However, the Alseth´s are in the process of adopting 3 of their children whose paperwork is available. Consequently, the courts have ordered that for the best bonding of these 3 children with the family, it´s best if the other children who were living with them moved out. Thus, we have this 2 and a half year old at the Baby Home! I can´t imagine how rough it would be to move away from the only family you can remember, but she has had a pretty good first day here.

climbing around outside